We could say that Adele and her sister

went out of the lion’s den into the lion’s

mouth.

Adele née Grynholc and her sister Tola

lost their parents to illness just before the

Germans occupied Vilna, Lithuania, in June

1941. Only teenagers, the sisters were invited

by an uncle to come to the Kovno Ghetto

where he would look after them. After various

mishaps on their way to Kovno—for one, all

their possessions were stolen—they arrived

at the Kovno Ghetto. There for twelve hours a day, Adele was

forced to labor for the SS, unloading bricks and heavy cement

bags from freight trains and working for the Luftwaffe repairing

and expanding the military airfield.

During the fall of 1943, Adele and Tola were deported from

the ghetto via cattle cars to Klooga Labor Camp in Estonia where

the conditions were brutal. Food was scarce and even water

was rationed. Adele worked at various jobs in Klooga; the worst

was in a factory making cement blocks that were needed as

fortifications. No easy work!

Adele Jochelson’s memoir, In the Lion’s Mouth, describes

the liquidation of the camp and how she and Tola survived—two

of only eighty survivors. The sisters survived because of Adele’s

courage a

We could say that Adele and her sister went out of the lion’s den into the lion’s mouth.

Adele née Grynholc and her sister Tola lost their parents to illness just before the Germans occupied Vilna, Lithuania, in June 1941. Only teenagers, the sisters were invited by an uncle to come to the Kovno Ghetto where he would look after them. After various mishaps on their way to Kovno—for one, all their possessions were stolen—they arrived at the Kovno Ghetto. There for twelve hours a day, Adele was forced to labor for the SS, unloading bricks and heavy cement bags from freight trains and working for the Luftwaffe repairing and expanding the military airfield.

During the fall of 1943, Adele and Tola were deported from the ghetto via cattle cars to Klooga Labor Camp in Estonia where the conditions were brutal. Food was scarce and even water was rationed. Adele worked at various jobs in Klooga; the worst was in a factory making cement blocks that were needed as fortifications. No easy work! Adele Jochelson’s memoir, In the Lion’s Mouth, describes the liquidation of the camp and how she and Tola survived—two of only eighty survivors. The sisters survived because of Adele’s courage and wisdom, qualities manifested even at her young age of nineteen. Readers will be inspired by her memoir, a testimony to resilience and grace

d wisdom, qualities manifested even at her young age

of nineteen. Readers will be inspired by her memoir, a testimony

to resilience and grace